Band is happy to be home, and it shows

In the past, the Long Winters' frontman John Roderick has come across as a bit prickly onstage. But at the Showbox on Saturday, he emitted the kind of warmth that only comes when you're really happy to be home again.

"We've been on tour since March 1986, and this is our last night," Roderick told a full house, beaming. "We beat Willie Nelson's record."

He was joking, of course — the Long Winters would have begun way before 38-year-old Roderick entered high school for his group to have come anywhere near Nelson's hard touring. Still, the floppy-haired, mustachioed singer-songwriter and his cohorts (bassist Eric Corson, multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Rothman, and drummer Nabil Ayers) have been on tour a lot.

The Saturday concert finished the Long Winters' most recent monthlong trek, in support of its new album, "Putting the Days to Bed," which Barsuk issued last July.

Roderick's songs tend to layer rolling piano and guitars, usually to bouncy ends, as was the case on the rousing "Teaspoon."

As well as being a homecoming, the Showbox appearance was filmed for a forthcoming DVD. Roderick commented that his usual endless line of patter was drying up on him due to the cameras, but nobody else believed it.

The singer is gregarious in song as well, creating '70s-style pop-rock that's wordy and articulate, if occasionally overly precious. " 'False prophecy' doesn't mean that prophecies are true," he lectured in "Clouds."

Review

Saturday at the Showbox

Roderick's digressions were frequently funny. Before "(It's a) Departure," from "Days to Bed," he noted that the kazoos for sale at the band's merchandising table were intended for this song.

"If you happened to bring along a kazoo, go ahead and use it," he said. "Don't feel obligated to play Long Winters-brand kazoos."

Like any good homecoming show, this one had guest stars. The Long Horns, a brass trio, helped out on much of the continuous, 21-song set. (Roderick noted where the encores would take place, declining to "make you go through that whole rigmarole" of clapping the band back onstage after the main set.)

Anna Lange from vintage shop Pretty Parlor came up to take backing vocals on "Cinnamon," from 2003's "When I Pretend to Fall," and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie played drums on "Carparts," from the band's 2000 debut.